EARTH TO SPEAKER HASTERT — WE HAVE A PROBLEM…IN THE 50TH CD.
Today, House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert will be appearing in San Diego at a 
fundraising event for federal lobbyist and former Congressman Brian Bilbray. Bilbray, as you know narrowly (by 1%) won the GOP side of the special election to fill out the unexpired term of former-Congressman-now-convict Randy "Duke’ Cunningham.
Hastert’s visit is motivated by one factor — he wants to keep this ‘safe GOP’ seat represented by a Republican. Well, here is something very important for the Speaker and other national Republican leaders to understanding. As a matter of fact, they need to really etch it into their brains:
BRIAN BILBRAY GOT SUCH A SMALL SLIVER OF THE TOTAL VOTES CASTS FOR REPUBLICANS, SOME OF THEM CROSS-OVER VOTES FROM DEMOCRATS AND INDEPENDENTS. HE IS GOING TO HAVE A EXTRAORDINARILY TOUGH TIME RALLYING GOP VOTERS TO COME OUT AND VOTE FOR HIM BECAUSE (A) HE HAS SUCH A POOR RECORD ON MANY ISSUES IMPORTANT TO REPUBLICANS, (B) CONSERVATIVES ARE NOT HAPPY WITH WHAT IS GOING ON IN WASHINGTON VIS A VIS GOP SPENDING, (C) BEING A LOBBYIST, ESPECIALLY IN THIS DISTRICT, IS A NEGATIVE.
Oh, was I shouting? Sorry. Let me reiterate that I think that Bilbray would be a better vote in Congress than Busby, but Bilbray is also no conservative, and will actually likely set back our cause to bring fiscal discipline to our Republican majority that has lost its way.
Enter: Eric Roach. The second place vote-getter among Republicans in the special election was conservative businessman Eric Roach. Roach is seriously contemplating running in the closed-GOP primary for the full two-year term. I have been able to spend a considerable amount of time with Roach, and he is EXACTLY the kind of ethical, earnest, charismatic, principled conservative that we need going to Washington from the 50th District. The GOP has a LOT TO GAIN if Roach does run. Roach, a principled conservative has rallied all of the conservative candidates (whose % of the GOP vote was like 70%) behind his cause — which means each of them would be urging their supporters to turn out and vote for Roach. This increased GOP turnout will desperately be needed to take out Busby.
Speaker Hastert should be asking Eric Roach, for the good of the Republican Party, to run a strong, vibrant campaign in that primary — spending a lot of time, energy and resources doing one thing — turning out Republican voters.
With no conservative running in the special, without a Roach candidacy, a lot of folks will stay home.
REPUBLICANS PLACE THE LARGEST BOND MEASURE IN HISTORY ON THE NOVEMBER BALLOT
Last night, the legislature put the largest borrowing package in the history of California on the November ballot. We’ll be talking a lot about that decision in the coming days. As you have read from my writings on this site, I think that it was a poor decision. I was exceptionally disappointed at the 10 Republican legislators (two in the Senate, eight in the Assembly) who voted to place a horrific $2.6 billion dollar "housing" bond (read: government borrows money and then redistributes it to a select few that they choose, in the form of rent or home subsidies, or worse).
I spoke with conservative Assemblyman Van Tran, who said about the poor process, where
legislators voted on something that they had not been given the time to truly digest, "This is a bad way to run the state. We, the elected representatives, were not given an adequate opportunity to review and understand what was in this bond package." Tran went on to say about the package, "This package is loaded up with lots of candy and other items that no one would reasonably call ‘infrastructure’ — at least from what I could tell in our hurried review of its contents."
Assembly Republican Leader George Plescia released a statement in the ‘wee hours’ that said: “Today’s vote is the result of many hours of hard work and negotiations. The measures approved by the Legislature will dedicate billions of dollars in critical funding to repair crumbling levees, ease traffic congestion, and improve our schools. Our actions today will enable us to build a stronger California.” [Needless to say, Plescia was an ‘aye’ vote for every part of the package.]
FR friend Assemblyman Chuck DeVore sent out this e-mail at 5am, which I think is worth a read (towards the bottom, you can find out which of our GOP ‘conservatives’ cast the egregious votes on that particularly yucky Housing Bond):
Bonds at O’Dark-HundredIt’s almost 5:00 a.m. as I write this, the State Assembly having adjourned a few minutes ago after having voted to indebt our children and grandchildren with another $35 billion of bonds for roads, buses, light rail, levees, schools, and subsidized housing.
I’m not at all pleased.
Before going into the details, let me start by saying that I am a big believer in process. We have three branches of government for a reason: each checks the other, restraining and slowing down the processes of government. We also have two houses in the legislative branch – again, the purpose being to subject bills to double scrutiny before going to the governor’s desk for signature. This process is deliberative for a reason. When we act hastily to defeat that constitutionally-erected mechanism, we do ourselves, our constituents, and our system of government a disservice.
Tonight the California Legislature did another one of their infamous, “Let’s rush to get a deal done in the middle of the night moves.” Only thing was, there was no real deadline, no true need to rush – only the desire of the leaders to chalk up a victory just for the sake of being able to claim they completed a deal.
The first action of the evening happened around midnight when the State Senate voted to approve the bonds and a set of hastily-assembled “reforms.” The Senate approved about 82 pages of language, much of it with hand-written amendments on the margins, then passed it to the Assembly and adjourned.
The Assembly began voting around 2:00 a.m., having spent about two hours reviewing the language sent over by the Senate. The first sign of trouble happened when we voted to suspend the constitutional rules that slow down the process. This was a two-thirds vote requiring 54 votes. 58 members voted “aye.” The only “no” votes came from myself, Doug LaMalfa, and Dennis Mountjoy. Of the 19 members not voting, 6 Republicans were absent from the floor, including: Garcia, Harman, Haynes, La Suer, Leslie, and Spitzer (the latter still spending precious time with his new infant daughter). One Democrat, Chan, was also absent for all of the floor votes.
My only “aye” vote all night long was to approve $500 million for a pay-as-you-go appropriation to make emergency repairs on our levee system. That vote was 72-0 with the 7 absent members noted previously plus Juan Arambula abstaining, as he did on all votes, in protest of the complete lack of any surface water storage (reservoirs) provision in any of the bonds.
The closest vote all night was for the housing bond. It passed with the minimum votes required in both houses, with the following 8 Republicans voting “aye”: Aghazarian, Bogh, Daucher, Emmerson, Horton, McCarthy, Plescia and Runner. These 8 members provided the consistent cushion needed on all four 54-vote bond measures meaning it was a done deal going into the votes.
We should have deliberated more about these bonds. We should have honored the process. We have now passed the bonds on to the verdict of the voters for this November. Based on California’s election history, all the bonds will pass, leading to greater budgetary pressure in 3-4 years to raise taxes.
I hope I’m wrong. Time will tell.
All the best,
Chuck DeVore
State Assemblyman, 70th District
www.chuckdevore.com
[Note – We’ll be getting you more information on who voted for and against what, but the Democrats needed two GOPers in the Senate to cross-over to get their 2/3rds vote on the horrible Housing Bond — their votes came from Dick Ackerman and Bob Dutton.]
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